Bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin has withdrawn from the title role of Wagner’s Der fliiegende Holländer at this year’s Bayreuth Festival. This article will give you an inkling (pardon the pun) of the underlying reason. I’m not buying the sincerity of his public statement of regret at all.
Hiatus
I’m taking two months off from blogging to launch a big project. It probably won’t be a total hiatus, but expect only sparse posting. You’ll see what I’m up to the day after Labor Day.
From time to time, the most interesting things turn up…
High Definition Recording Gets Higher
I’ve just attend an impressive demonstration of some “3D” recordings given by German producer Werner Drabinghaus. The playback system supplements the modern home theater surround configuration with four additional speakers placed high up in a room (in the present case, some 5 meters up in the Gasteig’s “Black Box” venue) on the right and left, front and rear. The results were quite stunning, particularly from recordings where some of the instruments and choirs are placed on risers or a cathedral organ is high above the congregation. Most interestingly, the additional speakers increased the sense of both staging and imaging along with the vertically expanded aural canvas. Drabinghaus is on to something big, especialy given that good quality surround speakers and amplification are a relative bargain, standards that include elevated speakers are beginning to find standardization (including Blu-Ray playback) in the consumer audio community, and multichannel formats are beginning to get traction among the download community.
Classical Music Biz to MIDEM: “You are dead to us…”
Okay, so perhaps I exaggerate, but…
Continue reading Classical Music Biz to MIDEM: “You are dead to us…”
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 1925-2012
He was a giant of the music world, and a particularly important figure in Germany’s postwar era. There’s a terrific biography/obituary at The Telegraph. EMI’s new SACD release sporting high-definition transfer of his four groundbreaking early HMV LPs of Schubert lieder with the incomparable Gerald Moore arrived at my office last week; these are among the most important classical recordings of the postwar era.
Lucerne Festival Shake-Up: Mahler Out, Mozart and Beethoven In
LUCERNE FESTIVAL hereby announces that on 8 August as well as on 10 and 11 August, Claudio Abbado will conduct Beethoven’s Incidental music to “Egmont” and Mozart’s Requiem. For artistic reasons, this program replaces the originally scheduled Eighth Symphony by Gustav Mahler.
I had been planning to attend what was to be the culmination of Abbado’s Lucerne Mahler symphony cycle. Interesting that as of the hour of this post lucernefestival.ch seems to be having technical problems (style sheets and javascript are offline). I will post more information as soon as I know more.
The Grand Unified Media File Solution — Well, the One I Prefer
Audiophiles who delve into the world of computer audio have hundreds of software tools from which to choose for organizing and playing their libraries, but I’ve found none to compare to… Continue reading The Grand Unified Media File Solution — Well, the One I Prefer
Prof. Vicari Was Far Too Gentlemanly
Professor Andrea Vicari was clear and diplomatic in a letter to the editor published a few days ago in the Guardian. Vicari was replying to a suggestion from Guardian writer that musicians play without pay for the honor of being associated with the games.
I would have been a bit less polite…
Lost Dog and Englishman (plus Italian and Hungarian)
Following an underwhelming concert last Thursday, I was beginning to think I was getting too cynical for concertgoing.
Continue reading Lost Dog and Englishman (plus Italian and Hungarian)